Prime Minister Julia Gillard says Australia does not need to choose between a pair of regional free trade deals, one involving China and the other the United States, after the Obama administration put priority on a Pacific free trade zone.

Speaking from the East Asia Summit, Ms Gillard said on Wednesday that Australia would work on both deals to ensure the benefits of free trade flowed to the Australian economy.

“We are going to be working on both and in a world where the ever-present risk is that people start using protectionist measures, that is that they start closing their markets to goods from Australia and other nations around the world, in a world where that is an ever-present risk the more times we have people working together to create economic growth, to create jobs to create trade and exchange the better, that’s why we are in both,’’ she told Sky News.

The Prime Minister said Australia was a “great trading nation" and had nothing to fear from liberalising trade.

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“I don’t think we have anything to fear here. Our agricultural producers are world class, the best in the world. We can do food processing, manufacturing, tourism, legal services, financial services and the list goes on,’’ she said.

“So we want to open up and make sure the things we produce get into markets in our region where the world’s greatest number of middle class consumers will be wanting to buy them."

The 11 Trans-Pacific partnership members are the US, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Chile, Canada, Mexico, Peru, Vietnam, Brunei and Malaysia, while the RCEP includes the 10 ASEAN members and partner countries Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan, India and South Korea.

Ms Gillard backed a proposed regional code of conduct designed to smooth regional tensions over the South China sea, confirming that leaders had discussed the issue – and North Korea – behind closed doors.

“There are already United Nations sanctions against North Korea and there are also sanctions and controls that go to what they try to export. So there is a framework there,’’ she said.

“What we have to see is people willing to enforce it and willing to bring their diplomatic pressure to bear on North Korea, what we fear is that they will try another test of a missile and I am also concerned about the human rights situation in North Korea."